Slip-Up
by SavvySlick
Summary: After the Doctor's attempt to destroy Captain Horrible fails, Billy's life begins spiraling down in a direction he didn't expect it to take... Though... Maybe that might be for the better...
1. Chapter 1

Dr Horrible's footsteps echoed throughout the otherwise silent room- the walls of the building only helping the noise to reverberate further. The floorboards groaned under his weight as the villain approached the still figure before him. The figure he had stilled himself.

The death ray- his new, praised, polished weapon- hummed with power in his hands, already warmed up from his previous firings. The faint smell of charred wood and smoke was beginning to slowly fill the building- merely the aftermath of its damages... Though, compared to what it would do next, a couple of burnt floors would be the least of anyone's worries...

Quietly, under his breath, he spoke to himself, close enough now to meet Captain Hammer eye to empty, frozen eye,

"It's gonna be bloody, head up Billy Buddy, there's no time for mercy..."

This was it. He, Dr Horrible, was a mere aim and trigger press away from everything he ever could have dreamed of. His arch nemesis would be dead and gone, he'd be accepted into the ELE...

And sure, Penny being available again would be a nice bonus, too, he supposed. Two birds with one stone. If luck would have it. It'd be a nice thought, anyways.

Everything was on the line, here... Fate was at his fingertips... Just an aim and trigger press away...

"Here goes, no mercy..."

He hesitated... No... Not hesitated- he downright cringed as he raised his weapon. Any second now, the trigger would be pulled. Warm blood would assault his hands, face, and clothes with the violence of a spray of the sea. He'd look like a walking crime scene.

Because he would be.

There'd be metaphorical and literal blood on his hands.

He would take a life. Probably his first of many lives.

"... Here goes, no..."

... No. He was no killer. As potent as his anger was at that detestable Captain Hammer- as much as his conscious barked and bayed for any act of vengeance- murder was far too much.

The League wouldn't like that. He knew they wouldn't like that. And they knew they were probably watching his every move right now. Studying his hesitation. Studying the way he tilted his gun away, turning his head and gritting his teeth, ashamed of how far he would have gone.

Was a life really worth his ticket to the League? Admittedly, Hammer's life wouldn't even be worth a cheap, greasy drive-through meal, though that was no excuse to kill him...

A rather unpleasant sound echoed faintly behind the villain in that moment. A whirring, which decreased in pitch and volume, accompanied by a few spastic clicking noises. The blue glow which had emanated from the freeze ray he had worked so hard over the past few days to perfect slowly faded away.

"That's... Not a good sound..." Was all Billy managed to breathe, the words admittedly lined with a nervous edge. If the freeze ray was powering itself down... Then its effects would stop working soon after.

And if its effects stopped working soon after...

Horrible managed to dodge the fist with mere millimeters of distance to spare, managing to lock eyes with the triumphant, and now most assuredly unfrozen hero before him. Clearly disappointed the punch resulted in nothing but a lackluster near miss, Captain Hammer instead- in an act of pure, unadulterated genius- decided instead to grab onto the ray gun's frame, attempting to grapple it away from the Doctor.

"A death ray-" He grunted, eyes flickering from the duct tape label to meet his nemesis eye to eye, "Seems like Doctor Horrible's moving up, huh?"

"Let go of it, you idiot-!" Unlike his freeze ray, which he had spent several weeks upon- adjusting and editing its design- Horrible's death ray was... Flawed, to put it simply. Manhandling a flawed invention wasn't typically the best course of action.

Of course, the chances of Captain Hammer even bothering to listen to a single syllable that came from his mouth was slim to none; he knew this. It came as a surprise to no one when the hardheaded hero refused such simple instruction,

"You're slower than you look, Doctor-" He chided, giving the weapon a sharp tug towards his chest- strong enough to pull Horrible along with it. Gritting his teeth, he tugged back in response,

"You don't know what you're doing, you halfwit! Just put it d-"

"Oh, I know what I'm doing alright." The larger male interrupted, his inhumanely powerful grip tightening on the device, "I'm defeating you. I'm keeping all these dirty street people safe. I'm saving the day, like I always do. And you-"

Placing one large, calloused hand against Horrible's forehead, he pushed him backward, managing to pry the weapon from the Doctor's grip.

"Can't-"

The weapon was raised high above his head- like a game of keep-away on school grounds. Of course, Billy couldn't reach that high even if he wanted to humiliate himself to try. And, likewise, nothing he spoke would reach the hero's ears, either.

"Stop me-!"

Now, when one creates an invention on their own, they tend to remember what the building process was... What parts and pieces went into it, how it operates, that sort of thing.

Despite it being a prototype, Horrible knew everything about the ray gun as if someone etched it into his skull. It mimicked his freeze ray in a good few ways; a device to stop whatever it's ray hit from moving, destroying and splitting whatever molecules it came in contact with like acid, disintegrating whatever remained in its path for a good few feet or so.

The freezing capability was only possible with the help of wonderflorium, a rare material that was still under discovery by most scientists. A lot of its properties were left unknown, save for a good few. Any self-respecting villain could tell you off the back of their hand the most important one:

Dangerous when bounced.

So when Captain Hammer used all his force to throw the weapon as far as possible across the room, Billy barely managed to get out a gasp before the reaction began accordingly.

A powerful wave ripped through the building- and, if he were to guess, probably outside of it, too- flinging both Horrible and his adversary against the wall, a violent thud symbolizing the time in which they came into contact with a solid surface.

The death ray itself wasn't built for such pressure, and with a loud crack, it had split itself apart. Shrapnel, steel, and other bits of his hastily built invention rocketed throughout the large room with a dangerously large radius.

Doctor Horrible was just beginning to identify the pain that came with being thrown into a wall, too, before a sharp strike of agony ripped through his left shoulder.

The response to the overlapping pain was admittedly a bit delayed- out of shock, most presumably. Typically, one wouldn't be expecting such violent pain in such a short amount of time.

Then he did realize. And once he did realize, he couldn't help but let out a loud howl of torment. Captain Hammer had done a real number on him plenty of times. But at the moment, it felt as though nothing could compare to what utter hell burned at his shoulder.

A particularly sharp piece of metal had rocketed at him, clipping the topmost part of his shoulder- though it wasn't high enough to avoid physical contact entirely, as evident by the fact that it had lodged itself into his flesh. It wasn't too deep- Billy could have pulled it out if he wished. Though, at the moment, it was difficult to consider doing anything at all when one was staring at a sharp shard of something, covered in their own blood.

Wasn't it worse to pull a weapon loose? Didn't it only cause more blood to spill? He couldn't quite remember if that were to apply in this scenario, but reaching a quavering hand, this fact- if it was one- went completely disregarded.

The steel piece was pried loose from his flesh- not without a sharp, biting sensation, and another hiss of pain, but nonetheless, it was out. And dropping it to the ground, the Doctor resorted instead to gripping to the injury with his hand- hoping to stop the flow of blood, potentially.

This would absolutely ruin his lab coat... Not that the matter was the most urgent one at hand- but he didn't want to flee the scene of the crime looking like... Well... A crime scene.

Still in some form of shock, the villain scanned his surroundings; a couple of terrified onlookers who hadn't the sense to flee earlier, shrapnel littering the walls like some morbid decoration, the pathetic Captain Hammer whining on the floor...

Distantly, the sound of sirens hit his ears... That was his cue to leave. The ELE wouldn't be pleased with the results of the evening- not that the thought even once flickered in his mind... Not when pain gnawed on it like a savage beast, replacing any remaining ideas with his inborn fight or flight responses.

And considering he had nothing to fight with, it only left one option.

Fumbling across the stage, down its wooden steps, and through the auditorium hall, the Doctor flung open the entrance doors- or, the exit doors, in his case.

Fresh air lapped at his face like a dog- though Billy didn't acknowledge this much, choosing instead to focus on the soft blue and red lights making its way steadily to the building's exact location.

Gripping to his shoulder tightly, nails pressing deep enough into the injured flesh to draw even _more_ blood, he ran- the opposite direction, of course. They wouldn't know to speed after him when the trouble started inside the building...

Sticky residue stained his hand and the upper-left half of his clothing a dark mahogany shade... But at the very least, the blood was his own...


	2. Chapter 2

"... Mass damages at the new Caring Hands Homeless Shelter… Few injured, none killed… Examining cost of the damages…"

In all honesty, Billy was only half listening as the two reporters droned on, seeming just as disinterested in the actual state of the building than he was.

"Mass damages…" He couldn't help but scoff at it. Aside from the bits of shrapnel which had lodged itself into the wall (which he was almost certain wouldn't take much effort to remove), he only singed the ceiling of the first floor… At least, he was pretty sure he only singed the ceiling of the first floor- it's not like he stopped to check. Whatever it was he did to it, he was certain it couldn't have been considered mass damages.

It was still standing, at least, so he figured it couldn't have been doing that poorly.

The adrenaline had settled by the time he made it back to his apartment, which- conveniently enough- housed both his living space as well as his lab. It had only taken Moist five minutes to speed over after the Doctor had called; only to find- much to his surprise- the villain's outfit torn, clothing and hands both coated in blood.

Thinking about it in hindsight, maybe it wasn't the best idea to let Moist of all people handle the bandages- but at least the wound on his shoulder had been covered up, granted with multiple layers of… Soggier than prefered gauzes.

Apparently, it wasn't a good idea to remove the piece of metal from his shoulder; Moist had explained that only a half-conscious Horrible the night before, as he struggled to keep the wheel of bandages from sticking to his hands. His only response to that was a hollow grunt, which would have vaguely translated to something along the lines of, "Figures."

He had slept the rest of the night (he didn't check the time when he finally knocked out, but he was pretty sure it was still night) in his oversized chair, and his henchman had been kind enough to stay near him, to ensure his injuries didn't get out of hand, or anything. Granted, neither of them were medics, but out of the two of them, Moist seemed to know more about tough scrapes than Horrible did. Considering how many times Captain Hammer would beat him into next week, Billy figured he should have known a thing or two about caring for himself by now.

His left shoulder was unmovable… Or, technically unmovable. On several occasion he'd tried, but the rocket of pain that shot through him was enough to discourage that after a couple of tries. Holding a (dampened) styrofoam bowl of microwaved canned soup with exclusively his right hand, Billy laid there, idly staring at the newscast displayed before him. He'd change the channel if he could; he didn't quite like focusing on how much of a failure last night was. A shame that the remote was on his left side.

At the very least, the pair of newscasters were picking up a bit of energy now, moving from discussing the 'mass damages' to the homeless shelter, and switching the topic to the actual events which occured the night before.

Billy shifted his position a little more, watching as pictures and video of himself flickered up on the screen… It was a little odd- he couldn't quite recall the last time he had seen footage from himself that wasn't from his blogs… Of course, in the panic of his attack, most of the shots they had of him, video or otherwise, came out rather blurred. And what little audio a few got from their phones or cameras wasn't that great, either… Either too muffled, or too echoed…

"At least you hit news…"

Billy flinched, wincing at the pain the action brought to his shoulder, turning to see about half of Moist's head peering in from the previously closed door. His eyes silently flickered to the Doctor's injury, though the dry blood which had begun to paint the surrounding area of his lab coat a dark crimson shade made it less than the world's prettiest sight.

"I didn't notice you…" Billy commented, head craning to watch as the damp individual shuffled his way into the room, "Didn't you say you had errands until three?"

"I… Well, uh, yes, there's a… Chance I said that-" He stammered, giving a pointless lick to his already wet lips, extending an only slightly shaking hand to the villian. A hand which held an only slightly dripping, wax-sealed letter,

"I thought you… Might want to read this…"

After receiving his first letter from Bad Horse, Dr Horrible had memorized the look of his seal by now. For a second, he had wondered why the Thoroughbred of Sin couldn't merely shoot him another phone call, but quickly dismissed the notion. It wasn't in his place to question, was it.

For a second, he made eye contact with Moist, and the nervous expression he saw flickering there was enough to cue him in that the henchman was as tense as he.

Carefully- as if it were some bomb that would explode any minute (which it easily could have been. It was sent from Bad Horse of all horses), he plucked the wet envelope into his fingertips, fidgeting with it for a while, before finally managing to peel it open one handedly.

Positioning it as straight as he could, his eyes flickered across the dripping ink words which had been quite carefully written in a rather neat cursive;

 _Our eyes and ears were open_

 _We saw your every move_

 _We told you very clearly_

 _Murder was behooved_

 _And since you didn't listen_

 _Your worth was never proved_

 _Your entery's void_

 _You showed remorse_

 _Don't quit your dayjob_

 _Signed, Bad Horse_

Billy gave a loud sigh, shaking the paper to catch Moist's attention, before pawning it off to him, using his newly freed hand to clutch to the bridge of his nose. Reading it over quickly- though granted it wasn't too big of a read to begin with- Moist gave a sympathetic grunt, glancing over his friend's… Admittedly pathetic figure.

Despite whatever potential was left in the rejected villain, he certainly didn't look like ELE material now.

"Whatever…" It didn't sound as nonchalant as Billy wanted it to. He cleared his throat, quietly, trying again in an effort to sound less dejected,

"Whatever." The second go around was too high- too forced, but he didn't bother doing it again, letting his body fall slack against the oversized chair,

"I wouldn't wanna be with them anyways…"

"You… Wouldn't." Moist echoed him. It wasn't so much a question as it was seeing how deep his denial was going to run.

"No." The Doctor confirmed, with a shake of his head, "I'm no murderer. I don't have to be a member of any… League… To display my evil status… I'm Dr. Horrible, Moist. I just got into the news, without even trying."

"Well, you did sorta… Try…"

"Without trying to get into the news-" He corrected, which was… True, to a degree, he supposed- that wasn't his aim of his attack, after all, "I'm a villain. Not a monster, and not a murderer. I can be evil alone, if I have to…"

The pause which lingered afterwards was enough to cause the Doctor to blink and turn, examining his friend's slightly nervous expression with confusion- before realizing exactly what it was he had said.

"Alone with you, of course- I could never consider a life of crime without my best henchman at my side."

Moist let out a small sigh, nodding a couple of times as if to infer that he knew all of that from the start, dragging his wrists against his clothing- despite the fact that it clearly wasn't going to do any good.

"Well, if you… Insist it, I should probably be… Off…" He spoke, after a few more seconds of uncomfortable silence- in which Billy didn't know wether to keep up the triumphant facade or slip back into dispondance.

"Oh, yeah, almost forgot to mention-" Moist paused at the door, wheeling to examine the once more confused expression of the Doctor, "You're… Out of clothes. Clean clothes, anyways. I wouldn't be opposed to washing them if…" He shook his arms, casting a spray of water droplets to the ground, the display self explanatory.

Great. It was just great. He admittedly should have realized that sooner as well- he didn't have an infinite supply of outfits, after all. And after working so hard on his… Failure of a death ray- not bothering to take a step outside of his house, nor his lab, for that matter- of course he'd be out of any clean clothes…

"I could call over the Pink Pummeler if you want, and he could help-" The henchman offered, dryly, knowing full well Billy would reject help from such an… Eccentric acquaintance… Not to mention, knowing him, all of Billy's whites would be pinks if he got a hold of them.

With a wave of his hand, he dismissed the thought, shaking his head a couple of times for emphasis,

"I don't need his help… Don't worry about me, Moist. I'll manage." He'd be beat red, with his tail tucked between his legs, of course. But he'd manage.

If his shoulder wouldn't kill him, the laundromat wouldn't, either.


	3. Chapter 3

"So what was it that you had to do all those weeks?"

Admittedly, the trip to the laundromat so far was going much better than Billy ever expected it to. After his… Public appearance… His monologuing… He would have suspected Penny to… Well, to suspect something. But, to his relief, she didn't. Or at least she didn't seem to, which was good and well enough for him.

No one really seemed to, now that he looked around. Strange how the coat and goggles were the only disguise he really needed to seperate Dr Horrible from inconspicuous, everyday samaritan Billy.

Of course, inconspicuous, everyday samaritan Billy was currently washing his clothes more gingerly than anyone probably ever felt the need to. He'd prefer being oddly examined while doing this, though, instead of the alternative, which was probably busting a few wounds open in the middle of a laundromat, in front of Penny of all people.

Which would probably make inconspicuous, everyday samaritan Billy a little less inconspicuous.

He cleared his throat with a somewhat bashful chortle, popping another spoonful (sporkful?) of frozen yogurt into his mouth before answering Penny's question,

"Well, my father-in-law up in uh…" State name… State name… There's forty-nine to choose from, Billy, just pick one… "Oregon needed some help with his dog- he was vacationing somewhere and couldn't take her with him."

"Oh…" Was her only gentle musing in response, dropping a load of clothing into the washer, before closing it, (admittedly awkwardly) clambering to sit on top of it as it ran through its cycle,

"What type of dog?"

"The uh… The kind with the… Hair…" Another taste of yogurt for his unusually dry mouth,

"And what's her name?"

"J… Jezebel…" Was his delayed response, knowing somewhere internally that that answer didn't sound quite right. A mildly confused glance from Penny confirmed this, to which he quickly added,

"Don't worry about it."

It would have been conspicuous if it wasn't often Billy's way of talking; he should have been grateful for that. Penny was used to his aimless babbling, which made it surprisingly difficult to differentiate sheepishness and fluster from other things; like the fact that he actually couldn't come up with dog breeds off the top of his head, or that he wasn't quite born a gifted liar.

"I guess that's a noble cause… I was sort of worried about you, is all…" She chuckled, with a slight shifting of her shoulders, as she carefully scooped a sporkful of vanilla to her lips, "I was sort of expecting you the day of the, uh…"

A noticeable pause. An even more noticeable swallow.

"The day of the dedication to the shelter."

Billy attempted to make the nervous lick to his lips as inconspicuous as possible, setting the snack to the side (which he sort of wanted to do anyways- it was really beginning to freeze his hands),

"Yeah, I… I tried to reschedule, but he demanded I'd come and I… Yeah… I wanted to be there, though- believe me, I really did."

"No, no- I believe you." Penny nodded, "You signed the petition after all- the first one to; it'd be weird to not see the fruit of the spoils... It's just…"

"What? Did something happen?" It was so… Gut wrenchingly uncomfortable to play innocent. Even as the words fell from his mouth, he needed to put all his energy into forcing himself not to cringe, not to twitch his eyes, or any other screaming tell to his unease.

"You… Well yeah, you could say that." She admitted, letting out a breath of air that almost could have been a chuckle, except it was dry of any lick of humor, "I… I would have figured you would have heard on the news, or something but… During the dedication to Caring Hands, the… Place was attacked."

"Attacked?" He echoed, in what he hoped to be a convincingly surprised manner, "Why would anyone want to attack a homeless shelter?"

"I don't know-" Was her immediate reply, before she put a finger up, "No. No, wait, I do know."

"You… You do…?"

"I do." She confirmed, "Apparently the villain who attacked it had some vendetta against Captain Hammer, and since he was there to give a… Uh, well, a speech, I suppose he thought it'd be the perfect time to attack them."

"Goodness, that sounds hori… fying." He could have sworn he was sweating. Or, at least more than usual. Quietly, Penny responded in nods,

"To tell you the truth, it really was… Almost everyone was… Really afraid…"

"But no one was hurt, were they?" One of the good things about discussing a crime that you've committed without the person you were conversing with knowing that you were the one who committed said crime was that you knew all the facts. The scene was etched into his skull. And there were no fatalities, he knew that for a fact.

"Well, uh… Captain Hammer was hurt…" She offered (to which Billy had completely forgotten about. He tried to act surprised), "And the villain was injured, it seems… But, no one was killed at least. At least not that I, the reporters, or anyone else has seen."

"Oh…" Billy assumed that to be a sighing-in-relief sort of sound, "That's good, then, I guess…" A pause, "Except for Captain Hammer being… Hurt?"

Again, Penny gave a simple shrug, the red waves of her hair disrupted as she did so, sending them rippling like a blood red sunset on the sea,

"I didn't think it was possible, either. But he's been taking therapy about it and everything… Physically he's fine- the only injuries he really got were a couple of nicks that were quickly bandaged- but he's really not coping well with… Pain."

"Well, for someone like him, the concept's probably foreign." He shouldn't have been so close to breaking a smile- really, he shouldn't. But how could he do anything but with the knowledge that the Captain Hammer was taking therapy over a few papercut sized wounds- if you could even call them that.

Maybe it'd force him to think the next time he came close to pummeling Billy into the ground.

Boredly- or at least Billy presumed it was boredly- Penny aimlessly fidgeted with her spork, mulling her words over on her tongue before speaking again,

"The shelter shouldn't take much to repair from the damages in theory, but… Well, it just made enough money in the first place to even open. I've collected donations for worthy causes before- a few years ago- and if I thought getting people to sign petitions was hard…"

It felt like some steel ball had plummeted into Billy's gut- some cold, lurching feeling of… Maybe shame, was it? He wasn't quite sure- wasn't quite accustomed to that feeling enough to spot it on command.

He had forgotten about that whole… Money aspect of fixing things… It was hard not to when the immediate thought for most matters would be something along the lines of 'just rob a bank'. Maybe the damages to the shelter were admittedly a little mass-er than he thought they were.

But only a little.

"Billy?"

His expression gave its usual noticeable twitch in response to being addressed, as he hummed quietly, forcefully blinking his own thoughts aside.

"Sorry if I'm boring you or anything-" The ginger offered, "It's not the most exciting thing to talk about, is it? Money- or, a lack of it, I guess."

"Sorry- I'm sorry, it's not that… I'm not bored, I'm still listening-" Damn it, and here came his idiotic fumbling again… But at the very least, this time, it was rooted in the truth, "It's just… So much on my plate so suddenly, you know? So much to hear about after being gone for a little while."

And there went the roots.

Catching a better grip on her spork, she scraped into the sticky remains of what drippings were left of her frozen yogurt, "That's understandable… I mean, we have a new villian on the rise, here… That hasn't happened in a little while now- and it's always sorta jarring when it does."

"A shame you didn't catch his name."

"Oh, no, I caught his name." She replied, simply. So simply in fact that it admittedly came as a little jarring,

"Dr. Horrible, I'm pretty sure. It was too odd to forget, really. Not to mention he practically- no, literally belted it out during a little monologue of his."

"No kidding?" His skin felt a little icey. Not a Johnny-Snow-ambushing-your-henchman-in-the-middle-of-a-recreational-park kind of icey, though. A paralyzed icey. And a little more icey than he would have prefered it to be at that exact moment in time,

"That is odd." He could only really agree with her, "Isn't that how villains lose their battles, anyways? Constant monologuing?"

It drew a chuckle out of her… Quiet, and light, and sweet- the sort of sound a flower might make, if it heard something it found humor in.

"Now that you mention it, yeah… I guess it sorta is. Isn't it like the first thing not to do when you're trying to pull some evil scheme?"

"Absolutely."

It wasn't. It was third.

His dryer had finished its cycle from across the room, and he quickly hopped down from atop his own washer to check up on them. The swing of the dryer's door opening had knocked him on the shoulder, and he winced freely knowing that Penny couldn't see his expression anymore. Not when she was behind him, idly mumbling something about not have any recycling bins in the building.

He hummed, sagely- the sort of hum you give when you're not quite sure if someone's talking to you or not, but you still want them to know that you're listening.

It wasn't too often he experienced any sort of urge to fix his mistakes.


End file.
